U.S. COMPLACENCY SEEN IN SPY CASES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807490004-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: April 6, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807490004-3
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U.S. Complacency
Seen in Spy Cases
By MICHAEL WINES and RONALD J. OSTROW, Times Staff Writers
WASHINGTON-The scene reeked of an espionage scandal: a young
Marine guard at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and his lover, Galin, a busota
Soviet employee at the embassy, caught in the most compromising of
situations in an American diplomat's private apartment.
When it happened late last sum-
mer, U.S. punishment was swift.
Sgt. Arnold Bracy, who seven
months later would be arrested in a
KGB sex-for-secrets operation that
has devastated American interests
in Moscow, was busted last Aug. 21
to the rank of corporal.
Then he was put back on duty,
guarding the most sensitive diplo-
matic outpost in the world.
By ignoring the security risk in
the Bracy case, officials at the
embassy and in Washington proba-
bly gave the KGB seven extra
months of unmolested spying on
the embassy, American intelli-
gence experts said last week.
Several said the Marine spy case
underscores a basic and unreme-
died defect in American counterin-
telligence and security policies-a
complacent attitude toward espio-
nage that has led to fatal lapses in a
long string of U.S. spying disasters.
'Management Breakdown'
"What it points to is much
broader-a fundamental manage-
ment breakdown in handling secu-
rity across the board," said a
federal law enforcement source
heavily involved in security mat-
ters.
"Don't mistake this. It's not a
failure of technical systems. It's a
breakdown of people and manage-
ment."
"The biggest mistake we'll
make-and we're going to make
it-is to come down on the Marines
and stop there," a veteran congres-
sional intelligence expert said.
"What we really need to do is to
change something that's virtually
impossible to change, a mind-set."
In interviews last week, those
and other intelligence officials bit-
terly criticized the State Depart-
ment and the former U.S. ambassa-
dor to the Soviet Union, Arthur A.
Hartman, for what they called
unforgivable blunders in securing
the Moscow embassy against the
KGB.
Diplomats Blamed
More than the Marines, they
argued, the American diplomatic
Establishment is to blame for over-
looking a spy ring that apparently
wiped out U.S. intelligence opera-
tions in the Soviet Union and gave
the Kremlin months of top-secret
cables between the embassy and
Washington.
One expert disagreed. Former
CIA Director William E. Colby said
the department "has taken its se-
curity responsibilities seriously,"
and suggested that better overall
supervision of the Marine guards
might have prevented espionage
losses.
All granted, however, that the
State Department is far from alone
in failing to address the espionage
threat effectively. American com-
precent U.Sban been central to . spying loss, from the
John A. Walker Jr. Navy spy ring,
which lasted 17 years, to the
Jonathan Jay Pollard, Larry Wu-
tai Chin, Ronald W. Pelton and
Edward Lee Howard cases of 1985
and 198&
-Walker and three helpers fed
the Soviets data on ship and sub-
marine movements, stolen easily
from the Navy. They were tripped
up not by U.S. agents, but by
Walker's unhappy ex-wife, who
tipped the FBI.
-Pollard, a low-level Navy ter-
rorism analyst, used a limited secu-
rity clearance to rummage through
Pentagon satellite photos, intelli-
gence reports and other top-secret
data for Israel.
-Chin, a similarly low-level
CIA translator, gave Beijing two
decades of top U.S. secrets on Par
East policies and military opera-
tions. His gambling junkets and
Hong Kong trips went unnoticed.
The CIA gave him a distinguished
service medal on his retirement,
and his spying was not discovered
until he was implicated by a Chi-
nese defector.
A Bankrupt Drug User
-Pelton quit the super-secret
National Security Agency a bank-
rupt drug user, then sold the
Soviets crucial data on U.S. codes
and electronic eavesdropping. So-
viet defector Vitaly Yurchenko
tipped the United States to Pelton
in 1985.
-Howard, fired by the CIA for
instability and drug use, vanished
until Yurchenko disclosed that he
had given the Soviets details of
U.S. espionage in Moscow. Howard
used his CIA training to shake FBI
agents trailing him and defected to
Moscow in 1986.
U.S. intelligence experts now
poring over the cases of Bracy and
Marine Sgt. Clayton Lonetree, the
other guard accused in the spying
operation, say that U.S. officials
were as blind to danger signals in
those cases as in the past.
According to former diplomats at
the Moscow embassy, for example,
it was well known that Violetta
Seina, a Soviet national who
worked there as a translator, had
won Lonetree's affections within a
few days of her 1984 arrival at the
U.S. mission. Lonetree's defense
lawyers contend that it was com-
mon to allow guards to mingle with
Soviet women, despite official poli-
cy frowning on such close contact.
Embassy officials are now said to
have ignored other warning signs
in the spy cafe, including disre-
garding alarms that Soviet KGB
agents tripped as they wandered
through the embassy at night in
1986, planting listening devices and
photographing documents.
Embassy officials "had him by
the neck," one bitter intelligence
official said, "and they never pur-
sued it. It's absolutely criminal."
One theory embraced by some
investigators holds that 00cept for
serendipity, U.S. officials might
still be unaware that the Soviets
had penetrated the most secret
recesses of the United States' Mos-
cow outpost.
Those investigators believe that
Lonetree was moved by mistake to
confess his complicity in spying to
amazed U.S. officials last winter.
The young guard, transferred from
Moscow to Vienna in 1998, is
believed to have continued meeting
with his Soviet "handlers" in Aus-
tria and to have discovered that
one of those sessions was being
monitored by outsiders.
Continued
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807490004-3
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807490004-3
mvecow, ana ten you they send 'em vigilance.
by train and truck and that they're The Moscow debacle, they say,
secure the whole way. It's bull," has proven that that was not the
one official said "For any intelli- case. Some now doubt that any.
gence service that's good at what it thing will do the trick.
does-and the KGB is good-it's Colby and George Carver, a
not all that hard to get into them." former senior official of the CIA
That official and others complain now affiliated with the Georgetown
vigorously about the State Depart- Center for Strategic International
ment's security "mind-set,,, saying Studies, blame a "post- Watergate"
Convinced that the United States that diplomats so intent on smooth attitude that frowns on restrictions
had found him out, the investiga- relations with the Soviets are re- that affect civil liberties, such as
tors now suspect, Lonetree turned luctant to take any measures that limiting access to sensitive docu-
himself in, hoping for mercy. But in Moscow could view as unfriendly ments 'or rejecting job applicants
fact, U.S. officials knew nothing of or even mistrustful. who appear to be security risks.
his alleged espionage: what Lone- Others say the Ivy League-edu- Officials are fearful of complaints
tree had picked up was the KGB, cated diplomats, by and large, are or lawsuits by disgruntled workers
"countersurveilling" its own meet- disdainful of the sort of disciplined, or candidates.
ing with the Marine to ensure that military-style security essential to "If you've got a guy who is
no U.S. agents were on their trail. thwart foreign efforts to penetrate known to be an ardent Zionist, do
The embassy spy can is espe- an embassy. The Marines, in par- you put him in a position with
cially galling to intelligence ex- ticular, were ostracized in Moscow, access to very sensitive docu-
perts because warnings about dip- a blue-collar police force amid an ments?" Carver asked. "Well,
lomatic security have been American elite of better-educated that's a touchy question, but it's the
sounded time after time in recent and wealthier diplomats. kind of question a good counterin-
years with little apparent result. A law enforcement official who telligence officer needs to ask.
Two 1985 reports by the Presi- has worked closely with the State These days they're reluctant to ask
dent's Foreign Intelligence Advi- Department on some assignments it."
sory Board and a panel chaired by expressed scant sympathy for
past CIA Deputy Director Bobby R. guards enmeshed in the spy scan-
Inman More Iatease Screening
blasted counterespionage dal. "Obviously the Marines you Among other measures, the crit-
measures at American embassies had here didn't have pride in their ics are calling for more intense
and urged a long list of improve- outfit or their country. They were screening of personnel for sensitive
ments. The Inman report recom- ready to toss it all for a pitch in the positions, more extensive backup
mended $5 billion in new construc- hay," he said. security measures to catch em-
tion and other measures to improve ployees who go astray and height-
security, a figure rejected by the `Third-Clap Citizens' ened attention to the warning signs
last Congress as beyond the State But he also berated their diplo- of potential espionage.
Department's ability to spend matic supervisors for making the In the Moscow case, specifically,
properly. guards' jobs more difficult than intelligence officials say that a
'Detideseies is Security' they should be. "The State Depart- clean sweep is needed of security
ment has treated its security as experts who allowed the embassy
Last October, the Senate Intelli- third-class citizens," he said. breach to occur. That would in-
gence Committee warned in a de- "They treat their people as if clude high officials at the State
classified report that it is "very they're a bunch of knuckle-drag- Department and the Marine Corps,
concerned over serious deficiencies ging hammerheads." if necessary.
in the security of U.S. facilities The Marine scandal has prompt- Many also call for an even
overseas, primarily those managed ed a sudden barrage of suggestions tougher attitude toward the Soviet
by the Department of State." The for improving embassy security, Union, saying that simple com-
report noted that the Moscow out- most of them dealing with the plaints about KGB activities will
post had been bugged by. the problem of placing young men in not deter Moscow from what has
Soviets at least once in recent years hostile nations for long stretches long been a high-pressure effort to
with highly sophisticated minia- without trustworthy female coin- penetrate diplomatic buildings
ture transmitters that were hidden panionship. throughout the East Bloc.
in some embassy typewriters. Most experts say that is a prob- That, too, is unlikely to come
The bugs apparently transmitted 1em, but not the problem. about, they say. Says one disdainful
the texts of typed embassy messag- The sorts of attitude problems expert: "They'll probably stick a
es to the KGB via an antenna said by many to be endemic at the letter of reprimand in somebody's
hidden in the embassy chimney. State Department persist through- pocket down in Foggy Bottom and
After the antenna was found in out the vast national security bu- that'll be it.
1978, the United States sent its best reaucracy, they -say. Diplomats "State is especially egregious,"
security experts to Moscow and who do not want to be bothered that official said, "but Congress has
searched the U.S. mission "high with routine tasks bristle at recom- never held anybody's feet to the
and low" but turned up nothing, mendations to reduce the low-cost fire when other things like this
one official said The typewriter use of foreign citizens as embassy happened. Until we get really seri -
devices were not discovered until workers, and defense contractors ous about it-really serious-noth-
1984. balk at costly industrial security ing's going to happen at all."
Yet it is human failure, not measures. Government reports
electronic snooping, that most ex- have urged an overhaul of the
perts say is at fault in any Ameri- secret-classification system, either
can breakdown in counterintelli- to limit access to the material or to
gence and security. The typewriter limit the types of material class-
bugs, for example, likely were fled, to little avail.
implanted while the machines were - Some experts had believed that
en route to Moscow via the State the so-called "year of the spy,"
Department courier service-a with the Soviet, Chinese and Israeli
service notorious among Intellli- espionage scandals, awoke the de-
gence officials for poor security. fense and diplomatic establish-
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807490004-3